During the Revolution, Marat’s Ami du Peuple Was One of the Most Widely Read Newspapers by the Sans-Culottes, these Radical Revolutionaries.
The Cour du Commerce, was more or less the court of the Revolution. The deputy Danton lived at #20 (no longer standing today). The harpsichord maker, Tobias Schmidt, was located at #9 and the windows of Dr. Guillotin gave onto his workshop: here, the two men developed a machine called the “guillotine” that was meant to decapitate heads. Marat also temporarily relocated the printing presses for his newspaper L’Ami du Peuple to #8.
When newspapers described the Cour du Commerce as the “sacred temple” of the Revolution
Courrier Extraordinaire, or the Premier Arrivé, September 2, 1791
During the Revolution, the Cour du Commerce was seen as the beating heart of freedom. On September 2, 1791, at the exact moment when the first constitution in the history of France was on the point of being proclaimed, a journalist from the Courrier extraordinaire paid homage to this place, from where so many new ideas had sprouted: filled with emotion, he even compared this “blessed street” to a Roman temple, in which burned the “sacred fire” of the Revolution.
